Love Your Ground
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: The story in two* parts, of a myth turned human, learning how to shed her scales and let herself be saved. * correction, three
1. Chapter 1

It started at an Avengers mission that took them halfway around the world. Natasha went in first to see what it was Doom had recruited a small army of technologically talented mutants to build. After half an hour there was a lot of yelling and her comm piece abruptly cut out. They abandoned the plan and rushed in to help in any way they could, finding her buried neck-deep in a sea of security guards. She was holding her own and more than a dozen were out for the count, but there were just too many of them to take down on her own. Steve dove into the fray while Clint started taking guards down from the entrance.

The facility was left in shambles, research destroyed by Tony's suit, and Natasha clung to Clint's arm to keep from toppling over as they ran back to the Quinjet. Bruce, looking pale and anxious as ever, hurried over to get a look at Natasha. Bruises were blooming over the right side of her face, where she'd been hit and the comm was shattered in her ear, and there were three small tranquilizer darts embedded in her neck. Clint sat her down and she started swaying like she was on a boat in choppy waters.

"How's the pain, on a scale of one to ten?" Bruce asked, shining a light in her ear.

Natasha closed her eyes, teeth clenched. "Six."

"Just six?"

"Six," she stubbornly repeated, color draining from her cheeks. The jet hit turbulence on its way into the air and she leaned over to vomit on the floor.

Steve balked from the other side of the jet. "That doesn't look like a six," he said, concerned.

"Puking usually means at least a nine," added Tony as the armor disassembled itself and folded neatly into a convenient carrying case.

Outright growling, Natasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and shook her head. "I operate by a different pain scale. Just get this shit out of my ear before I get a Hoover to do it instead."

Tony passed Bruce a pair of sterilized tweezers and held the flashlight. "A Hoover? Really? Come on, you and I both know that everyone uses Dyson now," he snarked, and Natasha shot him a scowl from behind her hair.

* * *

Two days later and Natasha claimed she was fine, but holed up in her apartment to sleep off the residual headaches that came with her concussion and just how much digging it had taken in her ear to get the broken comm out. In the common lounge Tony was busy on his tablet, accessing SHIELD's medical files with only a little bit less ease than the rest of the files. At least they had the decency to try a little harder to protect their agents' privacy. Not hard enough, sure, but A for effort.

A hologram of Natasha's X-Rays were rotating three-dimensional above his tablet when Steve stepped in. "What are you doing?" he asked, head tilted with slight interest.

"Trying to figure out Romanoff's pain scale," replied Tony baldly.

Color rocketed up Steve's face. "Are you sure you should be snooping like that?" he asked just as Bruce and Clint filed in, following the voices.

"What're you doing with Natasha's scans?" Clint demanded. Steve wanted to ask how he knew they were Natasha's pictures without seeing the name, but that felt slightly too invasive. "Stark, if Natasha knows you're going through these-"

"But _look at them!_" Tony blurted out over him, gesturing violently at the images with fury whitening his face. When there was no reaction he blew them up further, and there it was, some sort of patchwork on her skeletal structure, patchwork with serial numbers, twists of light in her joints, shadows between her ribs and in her abdominal cavity. "Do you fucking see that? It's _metal_. On her bones, in her joints - fuck, what happened? Barton?"

The agent shook his head, slack-jawed, arms crossed over his chest. "I dunno, this is all before my time," he replied. "But Tasha doesn't have scars, she couldn't to pull off her disguises, I don't-"

"I do, they're just too old to see," a voice said from behind, and they all spun to find Natasha, white-faced and clearly too exhausted to let her anger show, leaning in the door. She looked smaller in her pajamas.

"Nat, we weren't-"

She silenced her partner with a look, then stepped further into the room with gaze intent on the hologram display of her abused body. "They're mechanical enhancements," she said, voice hard and quiet. "Intended to make us physically superior, run faster, jump higher, tread more softly... They didn't wait until we were fully grown, either, so some of us wound up...horribly disfigured. The rest had dumb luck or they would go back into those who showed the most promise, make adjustments."

Staring at the image, standing so close, Natasha's face was cast in light too bright to fit the stark softness of the moment. Her eyes shone like sparks. Steve wanted to be sick knowing that she was one of the few who showed enough promise to be operated on twice. "You could have told us," he found himself saying.

"You _should_ have," added Tony, looking about as bad as Steve felt.

"Why? Because we're a team?" Natasha asked. "_This_ is none of your business; it has nothing to do with how I operate in the field." Her expression hardened when they all (excluding Bruce, who smelled confrontation on the breeze and promptly excused himself) apparently made the same unconvinced face. "What?"

"Well, Tasha, it affected how you operated a few days ago," Clint awkwardly brought up. "The Doc didn't know what to do with you like that, cuz of what y'said about having a different pain scale. I always thought you just meant you had a higher tolerance, but..."

Her mouth opened long enough to catch flies, but closed it without a word. "What do you want me to say?" she finally asked. "Some days I wake up in so much pain I don't want to get out of bed, but you know what? I do it anyway, because the only other options are a lifetime of drug addiction or taking a page out of Banner's book. That's pretty fucking bleak, don't you think? Getting up anyway, it's what I do, it's my thing. If I don't get up I'm resigning myself to the reality of what they did to me, and I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but I don't do that." What little color to be had in her face suddenly drained as her voice pitched and rose, and Clint stepped in at last to play interference.

"Put it away, Stark," he ordered in a low voice, hand on Natasha's wrist tugging her out. She trailed after him, then met abreast with him, then yanked her hand free and stormed off down the corridor.

The room went a little dimmer when Tony tucked his tablet away, silent and tense. "Well. Clearly we need to work something out. Steve, you're team captain, I think I'm gonna defer to you on this," Tony nodded.

That, if anything, told Steve just how serious this was.

He waited until a few hours had passed, until she was hopefully feeling improved from the morning, before bringing a peace offering. A tray of her favorites from the kitchen, all rich hearty dishes and her favorite spiced tea. Natasha was still in bed but she sat up when he knocked. "What's that?" she asked, gingerly touching her injured ear.

"Rabbit stew, cheesy bread, and a tiny little chocolate souffle."

Her eyebrows shot up in touched surprise as Steve settled the tray across her knees. "Who told you?" she asked. "Barton?"

"What, I can't be observant?" he shot back with a smile, sitting on the edge of the bed at her feet as she took a small bite of the stew. "But no, actually, yeah, Barton told me. Is it okay? How, uh...how are you feeling?"

Slowly and with deliberation, she put her spoon down on the tray and took her sweet time dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. "It's down to a four today, which is good, considering I'm still injured," she said, hand hovering around her ear again. "If it's above seven there's something seriously wrong. Ten is if I'm being actively drawn and quartered by wild horses. Nine is fire, because fire burns your nerve endings, and you don't feel it after a while. Eight...eight is being frozen in a cryogenic chamber that wasn't completely sealed. Seven and below are harder to gauge, being less urgent. Usually I level out at around a three."

"That's every day?" Steve blurted out. "You're in pain every day because of this?" How did she sleep at night? How did she manage to function at all with a daily pain scale that involved such incomparable experiences as fire and ice?

She met his eye, completely calm, and shrugged one shoulder. "I'm in pain every day because of a lot of things. What's one more on the list? Besides, I've learned how to push it aside, put it away until I've done what needs doing. Most days I hardly even notice anymore."

"But you're in pain _every day_, Natasha," he repeated, voice gone soft. His hand found her ankle under the sheet and held her there, gently. "You don't deserve that. No one deserves that." He thought suddenly of how Natasha never referred to herself as 'I' when she explained what had been done to her as a child. It was always 'us.' She wasn't the only person who suffered, but maybe the only one who lived as long. "If it were me, or Clint, or Bruce in this position, I know you'd want something to be done too."

"But if nothing could be done, I wouldn't press the issue, either," Natasha pointed out.

Steve noticed she was stirring her food but not actually eating much, picking her bread into little pieces between lethal fingertips. It probably wasn't easy eating when it felt like there was a softball lodged in the side of her head. "The only person saying nothing can be done so far is _you_, Natasha," he told her with a tentative smile. "You live with geniuses and doctors and super soldiers now. If we can't figure something out, we aren't doing our jobs right."

That, at least, made her laugh gingerly while holding her ear. "I guess we'll see," she conceded with a nod.

"And until then, I hope you know that you don't have to go out in the field if you're having a bad pain day," added Steve. "Unless it's another world catastrophe, we can handle it. Hell, maybe we'll call Spider Man or Wolverine in; what I'm trying to say here, Natasha, is that you don't have to worry about disappointing us or leaving us in trouble. We've got your back."

A smile curled her lips, and she offered him a spoonful of her meal. "Remind you of something?" she asked, and when he took a bite he was shot back to an illegal pub in 1943 where he met the most remarkable girl. Part of him wondered if she lived her days in unmanageable pain even then, but he didn't dare ask while she was smiling and relaxed. He left her that way to rest, gingerly picking at her food but still in good spirits.

After that, though she was by no means a changed woman, it was clear to Steve that Natasha had taken their conversation and at least considered it. The allowances she made for them were small but noticeable. Natasha performed no less admirably in the field, of course, but there were down days when she would step into the communal lounge looking wan, and tip her head with a strangled look in her eyes when they made room for her to lie on the couch with her head on Clint's leg. Other days when asked how she was, she would reply with a number. Anything above four was out of the norm unless she was injured.

It wasn't a perfect system, but they got by and they were all learning.


	2. Chapter 2

They were called in on another mission against Doctor Doom on a day that started as a five. Steve reminded Natasha of his promise when the call came, but Natasha stalwartly refused to miss out on a fresh chance to show Doom what she was made of. Despite being a little pale she was determined, and no one was about to dictate what they thought was best for her when she'd been figuring it out on her own longer than most of them had been alive - though of course only Steve knew that part.

Doombots were everywhere, an ample distraction from the real shebang, but Tony had already prepared for that with his most recent suit. It was able to scan any of the 'bots and instantly identify if Doom was actually inside or not. Luckily enough, Tony had had the presence of mind to make glasses with the same ability to help the team zero in on Doom as quickly as possible. The logic was easy enough: take Doom down, and the 'bots go down with him.

"Thor, a good dose of lightning should take 'em down en masse easy enough," Steve instructed, sending the golden god on his way. "Hulk, I know the glasses aren't fun but you gotta wear 'em, big guy, just for a little while. Hawkeye, get up high and try to find Waldo. Iron Man - Tony? - okay, well, he apparently knows what to do. Widow..."

They met eyes through the sheen of smoke in the air, already serenaded by the sound of Doombots exploding all around them, and Steve knew what she was thinking. Serum or not, they were only human. They didn't have gadgets that could operate at this scale, nor did they have perfect sight or the ability to fly. All they had was their stubborn pride. "You and me," he said firmly, "we stay down here, make sure there isn't any excess civilian damage. These things like to self-destruct and cause a ruckus. Let's give 'em hell."

She nodded with a prideful glint in her eye. "Captain." Pulling out her gun, she vanished seamlessly into the crowd. It wasn't exactly a walk in the park, fighting against decoy robots, but once Steve figured out that jamming his shield just right into their neck joints cut off their power source. Made his job a lot easier, except he had to get in close to hit their sweet spots.

He only saw Natasha once before everything went to hell in a hand-basket. A streak of red and black caught in the corner of his vision, and he turned just in time to see Natasha scoop up a kid and shield him from a self-destructing Doombot with her body. _Nine_ , Steve couldn't help thinking as he watched the flames lick at her back and singe the ends of her hair. "Widow, report."

When the noise died down he could hear Natasha's voice, murmuring indecipherable words to the boy in her arms before letting him go find shelter inside. "All good here, Cap," she responded. The visor on her specs were cracked, smoke softly rising from her back, but these things only served to make her look more dangerous, like something mythical thinly disguised as a human. Watching her dive back into the fray and wrench a 'bot's head clear off its body, Steve could have sworn his heart skipped a beat.

"Found him, Cap," Hawkeye reported, voice so calm he couldn't have been doing anything but taking aim. "He's on your eight, 'bout twenty yards off. Hard to get a clear shot when he's surrounded by toy soldiers, th-"

A crack of lightning interfered with their comm signal; when Steve turned he grinned. Apparently Thor had noticed Doom at the same time, because the 'bots surrounding him were lying in a smoking heap of rubble. The sensors in Steve's visor indicated there was a human under that robotic-looking exterior. "We got him pinned! Avengers, assemble!"

As Iron Man flew overhead Doom unsheathed what looked like a radar gun from under his cloak, and even though it didn't look like it shot anything, when he aimed and fired Tony's suit fell to pieces around him. Momentum kept him flying through the air, limbs uselessly flailing, until Thor swooped in and caught him. The same happened when Hawkeye shot an arrow from his perch; Doom aimed his gun and the arrow fell to pieces that bounced harmlessly off his armor - Clint could be heard cursing over the comm as his bow fell apart, too.

Steve ran far enough forward to get an advantage then chucked his shield, hoping to knock out Doom so they could bundle him off to SHIELD and finish with damage control. Sure enough, though, his shield fell to curling strips when Doom aimed his gun. "He's dismantled all our weapons," he needlessly reported.

"Not all of 'em."

Another smile threatened to break across his face at the sound of Natasha's voice in his ear, and his eyes almost instantly found her creeping along behind Doom with her Widow Bites charging. If ever there was an unbeatable weapon, it was Natasha Romanoff's strength of will.

Those who were unarmed took shelter from the Doombots where they could and tried to distract Doom to give Natasha a better advantage. He disarmed a few of his own mechanical henchmen with the gun when they started to malfunction from being hit by lightning or a falling piece of the Iron Man suit, Steve watching carefully, still trying to make sense of that gun. It was only when he rounded on Thor, and all that fell apart of his was a metal chain that Jane gave him, that the pieces clicked together with a bright white panic.

The gun didn't dismantle weapons. It dismantled _metal_.

"_Natasha, don't!_ "

Only when he felt a burning sting did he realize that scream came from his own throat, but it was already too late. Natasha used the shoulders of a Doombot to launch herself toward their creator, Bites at the ready, and only feet away she was caught in his fire. The Bites fell apart but that was nothing to the look on her face, crowded with so much pain she could do nothing but go slack. Steve and Tony ran out of their hiding spots as Natasha overcame the excruciating pain just long enough to wrench off Doom's helmet before he threw her aside. Steve and Tony caught her like a rag doll, eased her to the ground, watched her wilt like a crown of flowers while Thor back-handed Doom into oblivion.

Gravel crunched as Clint ran over, dodging 'bots with steely determination in his face. "What happened?" he asked even though there was no question of him having seen everything.

"Doom's gun doesn't break down weapons, it's earth metals," Tony said gravely. The stuff that had been melded into Natasha's skeleton since she was a child, wiring her joints together.

Steve tried to imagine how it would feel for his bones to suddenly fall apart. It made him afraid to touch her.

A mighty roar to the left woke them up to Hulk's presence, who had been continuously smashing Doombots into rubble since he bloomed in Bruce's place. Now that he ran out of them to fight he was looking smaller and paler by the second, until Bruce was staggering their way. Tony again had to relay what happened because Steve was struck dumb.

"She's gonna need surgery, so many surgeries," Clint was muttering, looking terrified and very young. "She hates going under..."

Mjölnir hit the ground with a soft thud as Thor knelt beside them. "The scoundrel is ready for transport," he darkly announced. A glance showed that Doom had been bound with the god's cape. "Is there nothing that can be done for her?"

Shaking his head, Bruce looked up from where he'd been checking Natasha's pulse and temperature. "She needs medical treatment right away, but even so...I don't like her chances, even with intensive therapy and procedures," he regretfully said. "She could be permanently disabled, possibly disfigured. She may never walk again."

Horror dawned over the god's face, but was moments away chased down by determined hope. "I may know of someone who can help, but it will require travel. Will she survive?" he asked.

"I-it depends on the travel," stammered Bruce, though understanding was clear on his face, and Thor instantly nodded.

"I will be as direct as possible," he vowed, and turned his face skyward. A raven flew overhead. "Father, please. My friend is in urgent need of the Lady Eir. Bring my brethren and myself to her in haste, I beg of you."

There was a pause, just long enough for them to lose hope, and then the sky lit up around them. Steve flailed in panic and reflexively arranged himself to cover Natasha's prone body from whatever was happening. It was like the light in the air was pulled in, condensed, twined together like strands of silken floss, growing up from the ground at the speed of a roaring train. Blindingly bright, impossibly loud and yet silent at the same time, there was a rush of wind-not-wind, like static electricity, carrying them across an impregnable void, and when he opened his eyes he was in another world.

As if waking up in New York after seventy years wasn't bad enough. They weren't exposed to greater Asgard at present, apparently sent directly to an inner chamber of some sort. Steve clambered back to kneeling and looked around. If he weren't so worried he would be amazed. Space travel. Columns of what most closely resembled marble lined the room, embellished with gold and something vaguely turquoise-like, and a beautiful tapestry depicting a warrior being bathed in golden water adorning the long wall. They had been deposited on the floor of the long but intimate chamber, but Natasha was lying unmoving on a bronze pallet ringed by sweet herbs and warm bowls of oil.

"My Lord Thor," a woman's voice, loud and clear as a bell, called from the head of the room. Thor hastily stood, and those who could did the same. The Lady Eir was tall as Steve, with black hair that fell in a long braid down the center of her back. Steve found that he couldn't meet her gaze for more than moments at a time; there was something about her eyes, something fathomless and vivid, that set the hairs at his nape on end. "What is the meaning of such haste, that the All-Father himself would-?"

Thor gestured to Natasha, whose eyelids were flickering and lips twitching as she fought against the pain. How long would it take, Steve wondered with a lump in his throat, for her to force herself to become accustomed to this quality of life? "This maiden is one of Earth's mightiest warriors, and has been gravely injured beyond the means of her realm," Thor explained quickly. "You are her only hope."

"In what way?" asked Lady Eir, her slim bottomless eyes narrowing. Though her hands were folded, the index fingers bearing golden rings of each were tapping and twitching a frenetic rhythm. "She may be a warrior, but she is a Midgardian and her injuries are dire. There may be nothing left to be done but carry her through."

Steve exchanged a puzzled look with Tony, but Thor and Clint both instantly let out shouts of protest. The god cast the archer an odd look, but Clint merely bristled. "I do my homework," he grumbled and stepped toward Lady Eir. Steve expected him to yell or threaten in his usual style, but instead spoke just as respectfully (and with just as much urgency) as Thor. "My Lady, I understand your doubts, but Natasha Romanoff has many more years to live. She isn't just one of Earth's mightiest heroes - she's _it_. She's stronger than all of us and she can survive anything you have to do. Please, Madam Valkyrie, she _isn't_ _ready_ for Valhalla yet."

And yeah, they knew about Valhalla even if they hadn't initially understood Lady Eir's offer. Thor talked about the Heaven of the Gods (or at least that's how Tony equated it) all the time. It was every warrior's fate to be escorted by Valkyries into the shining halls, eternally honored, forever young.

It felt like Steve was going to throw up. This wasn't right. Natasha couldn't die yet.

"My Lady, I beg of you," continued Thor. "You are the most esteemed healer in all the Nine. I know that if ever one could perform miracles, it is the Lady Eir."

There was a mere pause as Lady Eir considered their pleas, but for some reason it seemed that civilizations were built and burned in her ever-reaching eyes in that short time. She unfolded her hands. "Go elsewhere so I may work in peace. You will be sought when I am finished, but know it will take time."

Thor kissed her hand and nodded for them to follow him out. His already long strides were fast; they barely had a chance to look over their shoulders at Natasha before the tall heavy doors were closing with a resounding bang. They were fed and given new clothes, tunics and breeches that were surprisingly comfortable, but the condition of their teammate dominated their minds. It could be days before they received news.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha knew pain, knew what it was like to be unmade, flayed open, scooped hollow, programmed, reprogrammed, deprogrammed, filled with something and someone new more times than she could count. The story of her life could be told in numbers, carved into her skeleton with a rusty knife, dull blows hacking away slowly and precisely through the years. She was rescued a weeks-old foundling in the last days of 1928, so she knew she was born in that winter, but there was no way to know her birthday. Only the imagined tightness of smoke in her lungs and a scream in her throat. That year was impressed on the inside of her sternum.

She learned how to count to ten using rabbit's ribs on the cabin floor. The number ten was engrained on the inside of her left ulna. For the longest time every number after ten was ten-and-one, ten-and-two, ten-and-three... Ivan found it so sweet he couldn't find it in his heart to correct her, and those numbers were carved on her metacarpals. The water shed was exactly eighteen of his big steps from the cabin - the left metatarsal - and twenty-nine of her smaller ones. Sometimes she would be too tired, or her need too urgent, to put on her boots first; the snow burned a blackened twenty-nine into her right metatarsal all the way there and back as she bounded to her business. One night she slipped and broke her toe on the ice, but Ivan didn't wake up until she screamed and screamed like wolves were nipping at her heels.

Six, her age when Ivan was called to war again, was a leaden imprint on her acetabulum. When he left her at the Red Room facility, where he thought she would be cared for and protected from the world's evils, she chased the military truck carrying Ivan away until she tripped and bruised her hip. They cut her open in twelve places for her enhancements; twelve stars marched down her spinal vertebrae like a stone skipping over water.

On the inside of her skull marched a cavalcade of ones and zeroes, aligning with years of brainwashing, teaching her to sing and sigh and brisé on command without a moment's thought, without ever having opened a book or taken a single dance lesson. Every day a new nightmare's child, every night another seductress turned sour.

The year 1945 was painted red, red as a rose, red as lips, red as a husband's blood, on her iliac crest.

There was love in the numbers along with loss, remorse, regret, violence in hashmarks tallying her victim count, chipping away at bone right down to the marrow. Some tried to say that those who did ugly things could still be beautiful on the inside, but Natasha's insides were just as ugly and scarred as her actions. The only thing that could come even remotely close to balancing all the damage she'd done was the pain. Floating. Eternal. Unfathomable. But it was bearable, until that fight, until Doom aimed his weapon and her battle-scarred bones fell apart. There was no pain until that moment; everything leading up to it was just background noise in comparison.

In the blackness of the void _after_ there was no feeling, no battle, no pain, and Natasha would have liked to remain there, but she had one thousand, nine hundred and forty-three reasons to stay alive; they all revolved around a windy night in a bar at the edge of the frozen world.

A pair of eyes that seemed to go on forever were looking down at Natasha when she woke up, but she wasn't really awake. She existed on a plane somewhere above herself and slightly to the left, looking down at herself even as she looked up at the eyes watching. What was this? This wasn't a near-death experience, Natasha had been through a hundred of them before she turned thirty, this was something completely new.

_Come back, Romanova_, a voice said, and yet didn't say. It sounded stern, genderless, light as a feather and yet full of heavy meaning. It occurred to Natasha that she should have corrected the voice from Romanova to Romanoff, but she didn't know how to speak when she wasn't exactly corporeal. _You are not yet ready._

There were shackles, binding her not-self to that room, and usually breaking bonds weren't an issue for Natasha, but that was when she had a body with hands to break them. The shackles weren't even really shackles, just the inability to flee the sight of her body looking small and withered in that strange golden chamber. How was she supposed to return?

It took a lot of concentration, but she finally replied to the voice, _I don't know how_.

_It's alright_, the voice said. _I'll show you the way home_.

If Natasha had eyes she would have closed them. As it were, she folded herself, whatever form she had taken, up small like origami, like paper roses in the palm of her hand, like shadows in the night time. Another hand, much bigger and, if anything, less real than her own in the moment, cradled her and guided her back to her broken body.

The voiceless, bodiless, genderless voice faded. Rippled and shifted into that of a woman, older than the salt of the earth and calm as a cool breeze. "Hush, Romanova," she soothed Natasha, who was still acclimating to the sensation of solidity again. "Be calm, for you are well and in safe hands. I'm giving you something so you may rest a while before your comrades return. Sigyn, pass me that vial...yes, that one. Thank you. Now drink this and rest, Romanova."

At first Natasha resisted. She hated going under, not knowing how long she would be out or what would be done to her, but a slim cool hand adorned with chunky rings settled on her forehead, inexplicably soothing her, and she accepted the drink that tasted of no berry she'd ever eaten. Her eyes were instantly heavy and she slid into a more peaceful sleep.

* * *

Far as Steve could tell, they had been on Asgard for four days. Time seemed to move differently there: every moment slow but fleeting in the eyes of the so-called gods who inhabited the mythic planet. On the evening of the first day they met Odin, who Steve reckoned was impressive enough as a king instead of All-Father of the Nine Realms. He was nice if not a little full of his own grandeur. He provided them with food and lodgings in the palace, and fresh clothes that itched and chafed in all the wrong places. Thor seemed comfortable, but he grew up with the stuff.

The palace was beautiful and extravagant, but none of the Avengers were much interested in taking a tour. Their minds revolved around Natasha, wondering if there were anything that could be done to save their comrade from the metal in her bones falling apart. Still, Thor repeatedly insisted that if there was anyone in the Nine who could save her it was the Lady Eir. There was no comfort in those words, not really, but Steve tried to convince himself that no news was good news for the time being.

When he went to sleep the first night, it was to dreams of Natasha sprouting fiery wings and flying to Valhalla without so much as a word of goodbye. He woke up gasping and didn't go back to sleep again.

* * *

They were called back to the healing chambers late on the fourth day

"...something else," Steve heard a low voice murmuring when he entered the healing chamber behind everyone else. "I looked into her heart, saw that it was done without her consent by the same who put these monstrosities in her bones, and healed it. If she wishes to have it reversed it can be done, but looking into hearts rarely leads a good healer astray."

Thor grimly smiled. "Thank you, my Lady. I owe you a great debt," he said.

"We all do," added Steve just as Natasha's eyes flickered open. Tony and Bruce inched in closer, trying to get a look at her over his and Thor's shoulders, so Steve knelt. Her eyes found his and he found her hand. "Natasha? Hey, how are you feeling?"

Thin fingers closed around his in an iron grip, poisonous green eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. All at once Natasha sat up and they took a step out of her air. She released Steve's hand and ran both of hers carefully, cautiously, over her body, the soft shift dress that was draped over her to replace burnt battle gear, scuffed knees, unblemished arms, the plane of her stomach, and started to shake. Bruce's eyes widened and he asked, "What? Are you in pain? Thor, should you call-?"

"_No!_" Natasha gasped, covering her mouth to muffle her shuddering cries. When her hand moved, coaxed by Bruce, there was a near-painful smile distorting her tearful face. "I'm n-not in pain. I'm not in a-any pain at all. I don't...I don't hurt anymore."

It was the only time they would ever see Natasha cry, at least all together as they were, and even though he knew that on any other day Natasha would kick his ass for it Steve wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.

"I thought she would put it all back," Natasha murmured wetly into his neck, curling herself around his shoulder. "I didn't think she could take it away; I thought she would put it all back where it was." She cried and he held her for all of three minutes before Natasha pulled away, wiping her eyes and catching her breath. There was embarrassment in her face, but there was nothing for her to be embarrassed about. Steve would have cried too, if an unmanageable pain he'd suffered for nearly a century was suddenly taken away.

The Lady Eir watched them from the chamber door, her fathomless eyes silent as the Avengers quietly celebrated this small victory they had no hand in. Natasha stood on watery legs with her team supporting her, closed her eyes, felt the lightness of a body without pain for the first time in eight decades. It was like flying, only better, closer to the ground, free to tread where she would.

Steve watched Natasha meet the Lady Eir's eye and go still as if they were speaking to one another. But not a word passed between them, not even a whisper. A smile flitted over her face and she nodded at Lady Eir in silent agreement - or maybe gratitude - before her hand slid, small and warm, into Steve's. Thor guided them to a different part of the palace so Odin could send them home. Suddenly Steve wished that they could have looked around a little longer, but he was happy so long as Natasha's fingers remained strong in his.

In the next day or two he visited her in her apartment, just to see how she was doing, just to reassure himself that she was still whole. Natasha's smile was like the sun coming up when she opened the door. "You know you don't have to knock," she told him fondly, stepping aside to let him in.

"Yeah, I know, but I like to."

No one ever knocked in his apartment building when he was a kid. It was the kind of community they were; if you didn't want visitors, you locked your doors, and no one ever locked their doors because everyone wanted visitors. People were a lot more private nowadays. They sat at Natasha's kitchen table and she made tea, the spicy kind he knew was her favorite.

He asked her, "So, what's it today?" and she beamed.

Her whole face lit up, like stardust, like gold caught beneath his fingernails, as she replied, "Zero."

When their tea was finished and he got up to leave, Natasha stopped him with both hands clutching his shoulders, craning her neck to look up at him. "I remember how you screamed when you figured it out," she quietly confessed, like the words had been sitting on her tongue for a long time but she didn't get the chance to test their weight yet. "Like it was the end of the world, that's how you sounded."

"It _was_ the end of the world," Steve instantly replied, knowing the words were right only after they fell off his tongue and scattered. His heard started to beat faster as he lost himself in that battle again. The smoke rising off her back. The feral look in her eyes as she threw herself across the void at Doom. "I thought you were going to die. You were going to die, if Thor hadn't been there, you would..."

He trailed off, lost for words in the terror of that moment as Natasha flew toward her possible death. His hand - as if independent of his body - reached up to pet her soft red hair. Something flickered in her eyes and he leaned down and he kissed her. It was only for a second before he caught himself, before he felt her pulling in a surprised breath and pulled away, before he shakily smiled and stumbled on apologies and she stopped him with a hand on his mouth.

"It's okay," she murmured. Her hand trembled so it felt like she was patting his lips with her soft calloused fingers. A smile curled her lips. "It's okay. Come back and see me again. I'll still _be here_, Steve."

She said it like a warning, like a vicious kind of promise, reminding him that yes, that horrible scary day happened, but it was just a day. It was just another in a long line of memories they tangled together since 1943, whether they liked it or not. She was breathing, and he wasn't afraid anymore when he felt that breath ghost his cheek.

Her hand dropped, and he missed its warmth. "Okay, seeya here," he nodded and she laughed.

"Hey, I'm thinking of making a new scale," she said as he began to walk away. "Except it's a different kind, one of those ones where zero is bad and ten is good."

"Oh yeah?" He was walking backwards, hands tucked in his pockets, wishing he could flee without being rude.

Natasha nodded. "Yep. Wanna guess what today is?"

Even though he didn't need to ask to guess, Steve shrugged, teeth bared in a smile he couldn't fight.

She held up both hands with all ten fingers splayed like stars.


End file.
